


lovebirds

by jimothykirk



Category: DCU (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Marriage Proposal, Sleepy Clint Barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 21:41:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6724624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jimothykirk/pseuds/jimothykirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>**This fic is part of a larger series of fics I write as part of a fictional universe with characters from Marvel, DC, and my mind.**<br/>(In this universe, Dick and Clint went to the same circus, iconically named Haly Tiboldt's Circus of Travelling Wonders, fell in love-ish, grew apart, grew close again, and now this.)</p></blockquote>





	lovebirds

Dick sat cross legged in their bed, his head resting in his hands, his elbows on his knees propping his head up. He listened to his heartbeat pounding in his ears and took slow breaths that, in time, matched the ones of the man he loved laying in bed beside him. Clint’s hair was ruffled with sleep and the window by their bed allowed sunlight to strike his face just right, lighting his hair and a stripe of his flushed skin. The way he looked, wrapped in his sheets and sometimes mumbling in his sleep, his long eyelashes hiding his otherwise mesmerizing eyes were, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing Dick had ever seen.

Dick sighed contently.  

He often wondered how Clint could sleep for so long. By criteria alone, he was essentially a sloth considering the hours he slept some days.

He _also_ often wondered what had taken them so long to find each other again.

 _10 years,_ he reminded himself all the time. _I’m the luckiest man alive,_ he thought.

He blinked. Again. And Again. A part of him still found himself doubting if his life really was as perfect as it had turned out to be. He had been blessed enough to find his soulmate, he was convinced, and his dreams paled in comparison to the fact that Clint was actually _the man of his dreams._

Dick ordered every nerve in his body to relax before carefully reaching out to nudge Clint awake. Clint first, by nature, grumbled and batted Dick’s hand away before catching it and wrapping himself around it like a child’s favourite bedtime toy. His lazy smile, switched with a grumpy one when Dick removed his hand from Clint’s grip, returned as soon as Dick had leaned down and gently pressed his lips to Clint’s.

“Good morning.” Dick softly greeted his lover, kissing his cheek, then his eyelid, then his forehead. Clint hummed, mumbled, and buried his face in his pillow. Dick smiled and sat up again, twisting behind him to pick up a small wrapped purple velvet box.

“Clint,” he began, looking to the ceiling and closing his eyes tightly, taking a deep breath. _You can do this,_ he whispered under his breath. “ _Clint_.” Clint hummed in response.

“Before I met you, I had spent a long time wandering in my mind, trying to figure out who I was, and where I belonged. It wasn’t until I met you that I realized that maybe your arms could be that place. All my life, I’ve been aching to grow out of the heavy shoes I’ve been travelling in; I felt like I didn’t, _couldn’t_ , have anything to my name but pain. Then, when I met you, that heartache transformed into my first step out of the shadows that I had been hiding in. I’ve been trying for so long to be someone I wasn’t, trying to be a better person all while struggling with the reality that I felt I couldn’t be loved no matter who I was. But, when I’m around you, I want to be better because it feels right. Because I want to. You make me want to become something greater than myself. You inspire me in every act, every word, every glance. I look at you, and you’re like… like light made into flesh, and you have no clue how beautiful you are…” Dick grinned brightly, his head shaking about how distracted he was getting. “I’m a man who has always lived in the shadows and everyone who’s come into my life has always tried to pull me out into the sun or push me back into the darkness. But you,... you don’t ask me to come out of the shadows. You help me rip away anything that’s blocking the sun.” Dick opened the box to reveal a gold band shimmering in the morning light against the black cushioning it was held in. “...No matter what, no matter how many times I myself it wasn’t going to work out and that at the end of all of our struggling and waiting would just end in heartache — you make me want to say ‘yes,’ a thousand times, yes, I would suffer it all, suffer it all _with you,_ just for the tiniest chance to be with you again. With that said, Clinton Francis Barton, will you marry me?”

Clint mumbled and turned away, facing his back to the open box and Dick’s heart just about broke in two when he realized Clint may have actually been asleep for his entire speech — until Clint reached an arm underneath their mattress and turned around to face Dick again. His eyes remained closed as he melted into his pillow once more and held, in his extended hand, a gold band, reflecting the sunlight from the window.

However, If his eyes had been open he would’ve been treated to the sight of his one true joy in life sporting a very dumbfounded expression. Like this, they stayed frozen until the Clint’s always reliable laziness caused him to open his eyes.

“ _Jesus,_ what’s taking so long?" Clint asked and lowered his arm, sitting up and mumbling something about his arm getting tired. When Clint did finally look at Dick’s face, he promised himself it would be the image he wanted to keep with him forever.

His lover sat beside him, his hands covering his absolutely uncontrollable smile, failing to hide how awestruck he had become. His eyes were blown wide, tears sheening them and threatening to overflow any second.

 _This_ was Dick Grayson, the morning sun striking his face making him truly seem like the sun he already was to Clint; the one who hung the moon and the stars each night, and lit a path for him to follow when the dark threatened to swallow him whole. His dawn on his darkest night. _This_ was the same boy he met all those years ago, the same one who had left him, but resiliently found him again and waited, against all odds, to envelop him in the love and admiration he too had been searching for all his life.

**Author's Note:**

> **This fic is part of a larger series of fics I write as part of a fictional universe with characters from Marvel, DC, and my mind.**  
> (In this universe, Dick and Clint went to the same circus, iconically named Haly Tiboldt's Circus of Travelling Wonders, fell in love-ish, grew apart, grew close again, and now this.)


End file.
